Last week I wrote about the 3 Reasons Why Empathy Will Make or Break Your Deals. That was the why.
In fact, a study on more than 40 Fortune 500 companies revealed that salespersons with higher emotional intelligence (including empathy) outperformed their peers with low and medium EQ by 50%.
Now we need to dive into how to cultivate empathy within our sales roles.
But first, let’s clear up a big misconception:
Empathy in sales does not mean you become a big pushover who turns discovery into a therapy session. Nope.
Instead, empathy is a superpower in sales when it comes to one specific type: cognitive empathy. (The other two forms of empathy are emotional and compassionate.)
What exactly is cognitive empathy and what is its power?
Cognitive empathy is also known as perspective-taking or mentalizing. It refers to the ability to understand and intellectually grasp another person's thoughts, feelings, and emotions.
Cognitive empathy involves putting yourself in your buyer’s shoes and seeing the world from their perspective. Then you can objectively analyze and interpret their situation and emotions (without necessarily sharing their emotional experience).
The result?
You form an emotionally intelligent connection with your buyer – based on shared perspective. This builds trust.
You help your buyer to feel seen, heard, and understood (whereas product-pitching makes them feel invisible.)
The shift in perspective prompts you to gather important data points in discovery. These are details that you would have overlooked without perspective-taking. They enable you to diagnose the cause of their problem – and what will solve it.
So how do you develop cognitive empathy?
Don’t worry if you think you lack a high EQ or a high capacity for empathy. You can always increase it!
Here are three practical things you can do to develop your cognitive empathy.
1. Talk to your customer support team or work alongside them for a day! You will learn so much more about your customer’s world (and their issues) when you aren’t trying to sell! I recently spoke with a brilliant sales leader who came up through the ranks in his company working on support ticket issues and providing customer support. This gave him incredible perspective and knowledge that helped him excel in sales. In other words, it equipped him with cognitive empathy.
2. Team up with a colleague and practice role playing discovery. You will learn the most when you wear the buyer’s hat! It will help you realize what you don’t know about them – and need to learn!
3. Practice active listening - or what we call acute listening (with anyone, not just your buyers). This means being fully present without thinking about how you’ll reply, or what question you’ll ask next. It means listening not just with your ears (to their words, tone of voice, and inflection), but also your eyes (observing body language), and even your heart (feel into what they are saying).
The bottom line
There are enormous benefits to developing cognitive empathy (as well as emotional and compassionate empathy). It will help you form stronger connections with all people in your life – professional and personal. And as we observe in the sales world again and again: it will help you win more deals while becoming a true problem-solver for your customers.
"Unlocking Sales Success: The Power of Cognitive Empathy"8
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